Google Play Store names its best apps of 2018

With the end of 2018 quickly approaching, we’re bound to see a ton of “Best of” lists over the next few weeks. One of the first is coming from the Google Play Store today, which is promoting what it considers to be the best apps of the year. Aside from the best app of the 2018, categories this year range from “Most Entertaining” to “Hidden Gems,” with some fan-voted apps featured as well.

Many of these categories have multiple featured apps, but the big award – Best App of 2018 – only has one. That app is Drops, which claims to help people learn a variety of different languages through illustrations and micro-games. Google must be pretty impressed by what Drops has to offer if it’s going to pick it out of the seemingly endless list of apps that launched this year.

There are five apps that made the cut for “Most Entertaining”: VIMAGE, No.Draw, Neverthink, TikTok, and Scout FM. “Best Hidden Gems,” on the other hand, is packed with some rather intriguing apps, such as Slowly, which matches you with digital pen pals and considers the real-world distance between you when delivering your notes, and Luci, an app that allows you to track your lucid dreams.

Then we have Google Play’s “Best Self-Improvement Apps for 2018,” which includes the aforementioned Drops alongside other apps like Keep Trainer, 10% Happier, Mimo: Learn to Code, and MasterClass. The final category for Google’s picks is “Best Daily Helpers of 2018,” – the five apps highlighted for that award include BuzzFeed’s Tasty, Sift, Canva, Notion, and Otter Voice Notes.

The fan favorite apps of 2018 probably won’t hold many surprises for most folks – the fan-favorite app for 2018 is YouTube TV, while Google Play users have named PUBG as the best game of the year and Avengers: Infinity War as the best movie. To check out all of this year’s winners, head over to the awards page on the Google Play Store, where you can also download any of the featured apps.